Chapter 14
FRANCESCA
He's still holding me when I finally stop shaking.
My face is pressed against his chest, his arms locked around me like restraints. I can hear his heartbeat through the fabric of his shirt. Steady and calm, like he didn't just tell me I'm becoming his wife whether I want to or not, like forcing someone into marriage is just another Tuesday for him.
Maybe it is.
I pull back and he lets me. His hands slide from my back to my waist, still keeping me close. I look up at him and try to find words that make sense of any of this.
"You can't just decide we're getting married."
"I can." His voice is flat. Final. "I am."
"That's not how it works. Marriage is supposed to be a choice. A partnership. Two people who love each other deciding to build a life together."
"We're building a life. I've decided. That's enough."
The casual certainty in his voice makes me want to scream—or hit him, or both.
"I don't have a choice?" My voice comes out sharper than I intend. Good. I want it sharp. I want it to cut.
"You have the choice to survive." He cups my face with both hands, forcing me to look at him.
"It keeps you in control," I shoot back. "This isn't about protecting me. This is about owning me."
"Both things can be true."
I try to pull away but his grip tightens—not painful, but I can't move.
"You're insane," I say. The words come out shaky. Desperate. "This whole thing is insane. You kidnapped me. You've been watching me for months. You killed a man in your living room while I was sitting on the couch. And now you want to marry me like any of this is normal."
"I never said it was normal." His thumbs brush across my cheekbones. The gesture is almost tender if you ignore the fact that I can't move. "I said it was necessary."
"For you."
"For both of us." He leans closer, his forehead nearly touching mine. "You think you can go back to your apartment and pretend none of this happened? You think the Bratva will just forget about you? They know who you are. They know what you mean to me. And they will use that."
"What I mean to you," I repeat. The words taste bitter. "I'm a possession. A weakness you're trying to turn into a strength."
"You're mine." His voice drops lower. Darker. "You've been mine since the moment in that ER when you didn't report the gunshot wound. You saved me. Now I'm saving you. That's how this works."
"That's not love. That's obsession."
Something flashes in his eyes—not anger, but something else, something that makes my breath catch.
"I'm in love with you."
The words hit me like a physical blow. I go completely still.
He's never said that before, never even hinted at it. He's talked about possession, about ownership, about keeping me and protecting me and making me his, but never love.
I don't know what to say, don't know how to process this. The man who kidnapped me, who stalked me for months, who's forcing me into marriage at gunpoint is standing here telling me he loves me like it's a fact, like it explains everything.
"Luca, I—"
The elevator dings.
The doors open, the sound of feet pounding and something flies into the room—a canister, spinning across the floor. Then it detonates.
The blast throws me backward. I hit the floor hard, my ears ringing, my vision filled with white light and chemical haze. I can't see, can't hear anything except a high-pitched whine that drowns out everything else.
Hands grab me—not Luca's hands, these are rough, gloved, yanking me up by my arms.
I try to scream but smoke fills my lungs. I'm coughing, choking, fighting blind. Someone hits me across the face and stars explode behind my eyes. Then I'm being dragged, my feet barely touching the ground.
The smoke starts to clear and I see them—men in tactical gear, black masks, guns. Several pour through the apartment like an invasion force.
And then I see Luca.
He's already moving, gun in hand, firing. One man drops. Then another. Blood sprays across the white walls. I see Luca move like violence personified, precise and brutal and utterly focused.
But there are too many.
He kills a third man with a knife I didn't see him draw, the blade opening the man's throat in one smooth motion. But someone else is coming up behind him and I try to scream a warning but my voice won't work.
"Luca!"
He spins, bringing his gun up, but an arm locks around my throat from behind. Cold metal presses against my temple—a gun barrel. I freeze.
Luca freezes too.
For one second our eyes meet across the chaos of his destroyed kitchen. His face is splattered with blood that isn't his. His gun is trained on the man holding me. And in his eyes I see something I've never seen before—fear, not for himself, but for me.
"Let her go." His voice is deadly calm. The kind of calm that comes right before someone dies.
The man holding me laughs. He says something in Russian. I don't understand the words but I understand the tone—mocking and triumphant.
More men close in around Luca. He's still holding his gun but there are weapons pointed at him from every direction.
They start dragging me backward toward the elevator. Luca's eyes go wild.
"Francesca!" He's moving, trying to get to me, but there are too many of them. Someone kicks his knee from behind and he goes down hard. The gun gets knocked from his hand.
"No!" I'm fighting now, thrashing against the arm around my throat, but the man holding me is too strong. "Let him go! Don't hurt him!"
He's fighting to get up, roaring my name, feral and desperate. "FRANCESCA!"
I've never heard him sound like that—not controlled, not calculating, just raw animal need to get to me.
But they swarm him with boots and fists and rifle stocks. He goes down under the weight of them.
"Luca!" I'm screaming now, watching them beat him, watching him try to fight through it to reach me.
Our eyes lock one more time. Even bleeding, even pinned down, he looks at me like I'm the only thing that matters.
"Francesca." He says my name—not a plea, but a promise.
Then someone brings a rifle butt down on the back of his head.
He goes still.
I scream. Really scream this time, raw and desperate and broken. I'm still screaming when they drag me toward the elevator. Still screaming when I see Luca's body motionless on the floor.
"Luca! Luca, please, get up, please—"
Someone hits me again and the world spins. I taste blood—my own this time.
Then I'm being shoved into the elevator, and they drag me down. The doors close and we descend. When they open again, cold air hits my face. A black, windowless van is parked on the street. The kind of vehicle that screams bad things happen inside.
They throw me in the back. I hit the metal floor hard enough to knock the breath out of me. Before I can recover, someone zip-ties my wrists behind my back. Another tie goes around my ankles. I'm trussed like an animal.
The van doors slam shut and we're moving.
I roll onto my side, trying to breathe through the panic, trying to think. The van smells like old metal and something chemical. There are no windows back here. There's just darkness and the sound of the engine and my own ragged breathing.
How long we drive, I don't know. Time loses meaning when you're in the dark. It could be minutes. Could be hours. Every bump in the road sends me sliding across the metal floor. My wrists burn where the zip ties cut into my skin.
I think about Luca.
I saw him fall. Saw the blood. But I didn't see him die. He's survived worse. He has to have survived worse. He's L'Ombra. The Shadow. The man who kills people for a living and doesn't leave bodies to find.
He can't be dead.
He can't be.
But the image of him on the floor won't leave my mind. The way he dropped like someone cut his strings. The blood spreading beneath his head.
I'm crying again. Silent tears that I can't wipe away because my hands are bound. I hate that I'm crying. I hate that I'm this scared. I hate that the last thing I said to him was arguing about marriage instead of something that mattered.
He said he loved me.
And I never got to answer.
The van stops. I hear voices outside. Russian. I don't speak Russian but I recognize the harsh consonants, the rolling Rs. We're in their territory now. Wherever that is.
The back doors open. Someone grabs me and pulls me out. I'm in an alley behind a warehouse. An industrial area. Cold air hits my face and I smell it—salt water, the ocean. We're near water. Brighton Beach, probably. I've heard Luca mention it. It's Bratva territory.
They cut the zip tie on my ankles so I can walk but leave my wrists bound. Two men grab my arms and march me toward a metal door. It opens into darkness.
Inside, the warehouse is mostly empty. The space has concrete floors, metal rafters overhead, a few crates stacked in one corner. And in the center of the space, a single chair.
They push me into it. More zip ties—around my chest, binding me to the back of the chair, around my ankles, securing them to the chair legs. I'm completely immobilized. Helpless.
The men step back and I get my first clear look at them. They're removing their masks. I see faces I don't recognize. Hard men with cold eyes and scars that tell stories I don't want to know.
One of them is different. He's older, better dressed.
He's not wearing tactical gear like the others.
He has on an expensive suit and a watch that probably costs more than my yearly salary.
His hair is dark with silver threading through it and his face is all sharp angles and cruel lines.
There's something about him that screams authority.
The other men defer to him, step back when he enters the space.
He walks toward me slowly and deliberately, like he has all the time in the world.
"Francesca Mancini." He says my name with a slight accent—Russian, but he speaks English well. "The woman who captured L'Ombra's attention. I have been curious to meet you."
I don't answer. My jaw is clenched so tight it aches.
He circles the chair, studying me like I'm something in a museum. "You are not what I expected. Pretty, yes. But ordinary. I thought the woman who could make Luca Santoro lose his mind would be extraordinary."
"Go to hell."
He laughs—actually laughs. "You have fire. Good. You will need it."
He stops in front of me and crouches down so we're eye to eye. "My name is Vlad Orlov. My brother Maxim was killed by your Luca. Stabbed in an alley in Brighton Beach like a dog."
My blood turns to ice. Orlov—the hit that Luca said went wrong, the one that started the war.
"Maxim was reckless," Vlad continues conversationally. "Always making mistakes, always causing problems for our father. But he was my brother. And in my world, family is everything. Blood demands blood. You understand?"
I understand. I understand that I'm going to die here.
"Luca will come for me," I say. My voice shakes but I force the words out anyway. "He'll kill all of you."
"Yes." Vlad smiles. It's a terrible smile. "I am counting on it. You see, Luca is very good at killing. Very hard to catch. Very hard to trap. But now he has a weakness. You."
The realization hits me like a second explosion.
I'm bait.
"He will come," Vlad says, standing up. "He will come because he cannot help himself. His obsession will not allow him to stay away. And when he comes, we will be ready. Twenty men. Thirty. However many it takes. He will walk into this warehouse looking for you, and he will not walk out."
"No." The word comes out as a whisper. "No, please, you don't have to—"
"I do." Vlad's voice hardens. "He killed my brother. Now I kill what he loves. And then I kill him. My honor demands it. This is justice."
He turns and walks away, his footsteps echoing on the concrete. The other men follow him. A metal door slams shut. A lock clicks.
I'm alone.
The warehouse is dark except for a single light bulb hanging from the rafters above me. It casts long shadows across the floor. I can hear water dripping somewhere. The distant sound of traffic. The groan of old metal settling.
I pull against the zip ties but they don't give. The plastic cuts into my wrists until I feel something warm and wet—probably blood. I stop struggling. It's pointless.
Think. I need to think.
Luca will come. Vlad is right about that. Luca will come because he's obsessed with me, because I'm his, because the idea of someone taking me is probably driving him insane right now—if he's alive.
He has to be alive.
But if he comes, it's a trap. They'll kill him. They have the numbers, the planning, the advantage. He'll walk into an ambush and they'll cut him down.
I need to warn him somehow. I need to find a way to tell him not to come.
But how? I'm tied to a chair in a warehouse in Brighton Beach with no phone, no way to communicate, no way to do anything except sit here and wait—wait and be bait, wait for Luca to come and die trying to save me.
The tears come again. I let them. There's no one here to see, no one to pretend to be strong for.
I think about the ER, about the night he came in bleeding, the gunshot wound I treated without asking questions. I should have called the cops. I should have reported it. I should have done a hundred things differently.
But I didn't. And now I'm here.
I think about my apartment, my normal life that feels like it belonged to someone else. That woman who walked to work and complained about double shifts and had no idea a monster was watching her from the shadows.
I think about Luca saying he loves me... and I think about the answer I never got to give.
The warehouse is cold. I'm shivering now, or maybe that's shock setting in. My wrists hurt. My face hurts where they hit me. Everything hurts.
Worse than the physical pain is knowing I can't warn him. Can't stop him. Can't do anything except sit here and wait to be bait.
Please, I think into the darkness. Please don't come. Please be smart. Please survive.
But I know he won't listen. He'll come because it is integral to who he is… because I'm his and he doesn't let go of what's his.
He'll come and they'll kill him.
And it will be my fault for existing, for being the weakness he couldn't afford, for being the thing they could use against him.
I close my eyes and try to pray. I'm not religious, haven't been since I was a kid, but right now I'll take any help I can get.
Please let him be alive.
Please let him stay away.
The light bulb above me flickers once, twice.
Then the warehouse goes dark, and there's nothing left but waiting.